page_title: University of Louisville
section_title: Founding and early years: 1798–1845
hierarchical_section_title: University of Louisville / History / Founding and early years: 1798–1845
caption_attribution_description: English: The University of Louisville School of Medicine Health Sciences Center campus.
context_page_description: The University of Louisville is a public research university in Louisville, Kentucky. It is part of the Kentucky state university system. When founded in 1798, it was the first city-owned public university in the United States and one of the first universities chartered west of the Allegheny Mountains. The university is mandated by the Kentucky General Assembly to be a "Preeminent Metropolitan Research University". The university enrolls students from 118 of 120 Kentucky counties, all 50 U.S. states, and 116 countries around the world.
  Louisville is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". The University of Louisville School of Medicine is touted for the first fully self-contained artificial heart transplant surgery as well as the first successful hand transplantation in the United States. The University Hospital is also credited with the first civilian ambulance, the nation's first accident services, now known as an emergency department, and one of the first blood banks in the US.
  Louisville is also known for its Louisville Cardinals athletics programs.
context_section_description: The University of Louisville traces its roots to a charter granted in 1798 by the Kentucky General Assembly to establish a school of higher learning in the newly founded town of Louisville. It ordered the sale of 6,000 acres (24 km²) of South Central Kentucky land to underwrite construction, joined on April 3, 1798 by eight community leaders who began local fund raising for what was then known as the Jefferson Seminary. It opened 15 years later and offered college and high school level courses in a variety of subjects. It was headed by Edward Mann Butler from 1813 to 1816, who later ran the first public school in Kentucky in 1829 and is considered Kentucky's first historian.
  Despite the Jefferson Seminary's early success, pressure from newly established public schools and media critiques of it as "elitist" would force its closure in 1829.
  Eight years later, in 1837, the Louisville City council established the Louisville Medical Institute at the urging of renowned physician and medical author Charles Caldwell. As he had earlier at Lexington's Transylvania University, Caldwell rapidly led LMI into becoming one of the leading medical schools west of the Allegheny Mountains. In 1840, the Louisville Collegiate institute, a rival medical school, was established after an LMI faculty dispute. It opened in 1844 on land near the present day Health sciences campus.
caption: The University of Louisville School of Medicine opened in 1837
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